Seoul — A South Korean court docket acquitted on Wednesday a lady convicted six a long time in the past for defending herself in opposition to sexual violence, after she was impressed by the nation’s #MeToo motion to problem the ruling.
Choi Mal-ja was 19 in 1964 when she was attacked by a 21-year-old man within the southern city of Gimhae. He pinned her to the bottom and repeatedly compelled his tongue into her mouth, at one level blocking her nostril to cease her from respiratory, in keeping with court docket data.
Choi managed to interrupt free by biting off about half of an inch of his tongue.
In one among South Korea’s most contentious rulings on sexual violence, the aggressor acquired solely six months in jail, suspended for 2 years, for trespassing and intimidation — however not tried rape.
However Choi, now 79, was convicted of inflicting grievous bodily hurt and handed a 10-month jail sentence, suspended for 2 years.
That call was overturned Wednesday by the Busan District Court docket, which dominated that her actions “represent justifiable self-defense” beneath South Korean legislation.
Choi’s actions on the time at the moment are “deemed an try to flee an unjust infringement on her bodily integrity and sexual self-determination,” the court docket mentioned in an announcement despatched to AFP.
The ruling overturns Choi’s 1965 conviction, when the court docket discovered her actions had “exceeded the affordable bounds of legally permissible self-defense.”
Carrying a vivid pink blazer, Choi beamed as supporters handed her a number of bouquets after the ruling. Ladies’s rights activists and her supporters celebrated, many visibly emotional, waving a placard that learn, “Choi Mal-ja did it!”
“Sixty-one years in the past, in a state of affairs the place I may perceive nothing, the sufferer grew to become the perpetrator, and my destiny was sealed as a prison,” Choi mentioned at a information convention following the ruling. “For the victims who shared the identical destiny as mine, I needed to be a supply of hope for them.”
JUNG YEON-JE/AFP/Getty
Choi’s enchantment gained momentum after the #MeToo motion, which took off in South Korea and fueled huge ladies’s rights protests and led to victories on points starting from abortion entry to more durable penalties for spycam crimes, and a reckoning for the worldwide Ok-pop music business.
Choi filed for a retrial in 2020, however decrease courts initially rejected her petition. After years of campaigning and an enchantment, South Korea’s high court docket lastly ordered a retrial in 2024.
Her legal professionals mentioned they now plan to hunt compensation from the state for the damages she suffered from her conviction six a long time in the past.
